At some point in each session of my language class, my classmates and I are told to partner up with someone new and practice our conversation skills through exchanges of pleasantries and questions about majors and favorite colors. Earlier this week, I teamed up with Jayne, who told me (in English) that she is seventeen and just graduated from high school a few months ago. After some quick mental gymnastics, I calculated that I was in high school when she was born. Wow.
After we had exchanged (in Filipino) what we ate for dinner the previous night, I asked if she did anything else. She replied that she had played a videogame, so I followed up by asking if she had a favorite and then she asked me for mine. I blurted out “Frogger” before remembering all those hours spent playing Maniac Mansion on my family’s Commodore 64. But before I could change my answer, Jayne asked (in English), “What’s Frogger? I don’t think I’ve heard of it.”
I felt my thirtysomething soul wheeze a little with those words. Had I mentioned MM and the Commodore, I don’t think I could have withstood the twitching induced by her blank stare.
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